LoveFilm is no more, being rebranded as Amazon Prime Instant Video and being folded into the existing Amazon Prime service. Most people will have to pay more money for the service, but the £79-per-year asking price buys you more than just streaming video.

Amazon Prime Primer

Amazon Prime is primarily a premium version of Amazon, with those willing to pay the asking price gaining next-day delivery (two days in the much larger U.S.) on most items sold through the online retailer.

If this was the only advantage Prime offered, you would have to order a lot of items to justify the expense. However, Prime customers in the U.S. have had extras included for several years, including Amazon Instant Video (formerly Amazon Unbox and Amazon Video on Demand) and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

This has sweetened the pot and upped the number of Amazon customers opting to subscribe.

Amazon Prime In The U.K.

In the U.K., Prime has, until now, been all about the expedited shipping. But Amazon is folding LoveFilm (which it acquired in 2011 for £200 million) into Amazon Prime, mimicking the U.S. model.

The price of Amazon Prime will now rise from £49-per-year to £79-per-year. But the next-day delivery will be augmented by unlimited access to the former LoveFilm content (15,000 movies and TV shows), and the chance to borrow one Kindle book (of the 500,000 titles available) every month.

Existing LoveFilm customers will be looking at an extra annual cost of £7 to become a fully-fledged member of Amazon Prime. Existing Prime customers will be looking at an extra annual cost of £30, but will get a lot of extras for their money.

Conclusions

Amazon is heralding this as a wholly positive thing for its customers, and it’s true that the annual cost can be justified by what’s being offered.

However, the changes still mean most people will be paying more than they were previously (all except those who subscribed separately to both Amazon Prime and LoveFilm). Which, in a time of austerity and squeezed budgets, may not go down too well.